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Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
151–160 of 205 posts
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#152The only thing truly embarrassing is that nobody at YC advised them that this ad is 1) terribly amateur and 2) has the chance to look extremely bad. Did not advise and in fact published to their feed. Weird optics, I am not familiar with what I presume to be Indian factories, other than the wild lack of safety (thanks youtube) but I cannot see how this video does anything positive. As for the product itself I don't t…
I think people are thrown off by the Indian work culture shown in the video, which is very hierarchical and frequently involves parent-like scolding. That said, I think that culture is horrible and should be eliminated.
I worked at an Indian consulting firm as the only American and experienced this firsthand.
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#153I find the marketing interesting considering that this product already exists in other continents ... and it is NOT deployed in factories. It is deployed in office settings. If this our future? Lots of video evidence: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Using+AI+to+mo... Expect dishonest marketing by those aspiring to build these surveillance and anti-freedom systems in our western countries.
Why not deploy it across every moment of everyone's life, with algorithmic prediction of economically unproductive deviance and BadThink? Maybe I'll pitch that to someone with money.
Larry Ellison is already pitching this.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnip...
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#154Having been in this industry for a long time now, I see a disappointing trend in tech, and US society in general: viewing everything at zero sum. I’m probably naive, but I remember in the past tech focusing on innovation that would generate enough gains for everyone to get a share (or at least the gain to the tech company did not come at the expense of someone else) Now, more and more I see business plans that are ze…
There was a time when US tech people would use this idea as a moral parable.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
But now we have current tech businesses basing their future growth strategies as much on better dark patterns as on actual value creation. Imagine a society using their best minds to figure out 'better' dark patterns, and counting the outcome from those patterns as GDP growth. That society is royally f'd on every level.
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
TBH I'd rather buy shirts where I know that people doing them have been well-treated
The people who worked in these companies are usually incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do seated work indoors for reasonable wages. Applying Western labour practices to third world countries would prevent them from ever developing...hurting the very people we all want to help.
Looool "those people should thank us for colonizing their countries, we brought them road"...
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
>As someone who grew up in a 3rd world country and whose mother owned a clothing factory, this product seems...fine? People in western countries find things like sweatshops to be objectionable. >The response is an indication of how little people know about how their t-shirts and shoes are made. People in western countries are well aware of how their shirts are made, and don't like it, and try to avoid it when possibl…
I'm not sure what data you're using to prove this but it seems like many of the largest brands in the US are still using sweatshop labor [1]. Many still have no idea of what's going on in Xinjiang [2] 1. https://yoursustainableguide.com/brands-that-use-sweatshops/ 2. https://whatishappeninginxinjiang.com/brands-linked-to-xinji...
Are you trying to make the point that people don’t care or aren’t aware of the fact that their clothes are made in sweatshops by linking to a western blog extensively detailing the brands that use sweatshops with the implied point that you should avoid them because they are bad?
Sweatshops are bad. Westerns know this. They don’t want sweatshops.
Seeing YC back a sweatshop management application that uses AI to help managers harass their workers is sad. It would be similar to them investing in faster slave ships in the 1850s.
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> like all things, it boils down to the owner/managers of said factory not the tool. Tools are created and optimised for a purpose. If you gouge someone’s eye out with chopsticks or a spoon, their inventors are hardly at fault. If you kill a bunch of people with an AK-47, its inventor doesn’t get a free pass.¹ These guys clearly built this tool to crack down on factory workers. They aren’t excused when managers use t…
A more apt example would have been Nobel with TNT, as it has more legitimate purposes. This software could be used legitimately.
> This software could be used legitimately.
But it wasn’t designed to, which is the point. The creators had a specific goal in mind, and that goal is exploiting factory workers to the benefit of the owners. This is clear from their written words and video. Like with any tool, the goal influences the design and the design influences how people use it.
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#158Has this been manually delisted from the frontpage? It doesn't say it's flagged, but it's no longer on there. EDIT: looks like it's #157 now, I think I just misunderstand the ranking mechanism.
It set off the flamewar detector. Moderators haven't touched it, except that we turned off the user flags on the story. Otherwise it would be displaying [flagged] at the top. We moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is part of the story ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ). This doesn't mean we don't moderate at all, of course; that would be too large a loophole. But we do…
I greatly value and respect your moderation work. That consideration made me temper my words in the title and the post’s description. I did not create the thread with the intent to cause a flamewar, and in fact didn’t even realise the scope of the story until the very first comment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43170866
Everything I wrote was the conclusion of original research based entirely on what I read from the founders’ words and what I saw in the video. Apart from the Mastodon post, I saw zero opinions on the matter before posting. The more I looked at it, the stronger I felt the criticism was warranted with those specific terms.
I genuinely do not feel there is a more “accurate and neutral” title I could’ve written. From everything I found, the title looks accurate. As for neutrality, which could surely only amount in this instance to being apologetic, I don’t feel there would have been any point to making the original post if not for the criticism.
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more apt example would have been Nobel with TNT, as it has more legitimate purposes. This software could be used legitimately.
And yet Nobel was so upset about his legacy of being the explosives guy for WW1, we still reward scientists with money and an award from him.
Yes, that's my point
Re: Tell HN: Y Combinator backing AI company to abuse factory workers
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
A more apt example would have been Nobel with TNT, as it has more legitimate purposes. This software could be used legitimately.
> This software could be used legitimately. But it wasn’t designed to , which is the point. The creators had a specific goal in mind, and that goal is exploiting factory workers to the benefit of the owners. This is clear from their written words and video. Like with any tool, the goal influences the design and the design influences how people use it.
Seems like management could use the tool to reward high performers. It's all about how it's used.